INFINITY Science Center

The road to the Moon ran through Hancock County. On October 25, 1961, NASA chose a high terrace beside the East Pearl River for a static-fire test site, because the rocket stages were too big and too loud for anywhere else and could travel by barge. Five small towns stood there: Gainesville, Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa and Westonia, old logging and shipping settlements. Logtown's sawmill was said to be the largest in the United States in 1948. By the fall of 1963 about 660 families had given up their homes, and the 13,800-acre site sits inside a 125,000-acre acoustic buffer that reaches into Louisiana.

Testing began on April 23, 1966, and every Saturn V first and second stage for Apollo was proven here. NASA says the Apollo boosters, those for Apollo 11 among them, performed without a single failure. From 1975 to 2009 the same stands fired every space shuttle main engine. Stennis remains the country's largest rocket engine test site.

The INFINITY Science Center is the public door. This nonprofit museum serves as the visitor center for Stennis and sits beside the state welcome center near the Louisiana line, which makes it an easy stop off I-10. Inside are an Apollo 4 command module and a space station module. Outside stand an F-1 engine and the Apollo 19 Saturn V first stage.